More Caricatures

But to be fair to Rand Paul, there’s a lot of distance between Rand Paul’s agenda, which isn’t exactly mine, and the caricature of nativism or isolationism. ~Bill Kristol

What Kristol failed to say here is that the “caricature of nativism and isolationism” is a caricature drawn by people like Bill Kristol. The reality is that there isn’t that much distance between Rand Paul’s agenda and the agenda of people who have been routinely denounced as nativists and isolationists by mainstream conservatives for decades. That doesn’t mean that Rand Paul is actually close to “nativism” or “isolationism,” but rather that many of the people who admire and support him don’t subscribe to these things, either. These have been misrepresentations circulated by pro-immigration and hawkish foreign policy conservatives for a very long time. Properly speaking, isolationism does not exist and has never existed, and it is a pejorative label applied indiscriminately to almost anyone who prefers not entering into unnecessary foreign wars. Support for immigration restrictions is not in itself nativist, though it has regularly been treated that way by Republican administrations and party leadership. Bush spent an inordinate amount of time denouncing these basically non-existent tendencies in American politics as a way of deflecting attention from his own extraordinary policy failures and blunders.

The time was when someone espousing Rand Paul’s views would be pilloried and attacked by mainstream conservatives with even greater intensity after a strong electoral showing. The difference in treatment this time has to do with the fact that Paul will be just one Senator among forty-odd Republicans, and so his primary win doesn’t frighten his critics nearly as much as it would if he were to mount a credible presidential bid. It could also be that there is a growing recognition on the part of people who tried to defeat Paul that he represents a sizeable part of the GOP in many ways and that they don’t want to be on the wrong side of this constituency.

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4 Responses to More Caricatures

New lows for the blather spewing buffoon Bill Kristol.
Rand Paul is not “isolationist” or “nativist.” And there is “a lot of distance” between Rand Paul and even the “caricature” of one of these dreadful boogies that go bump in the night. That makes Rand Paul at least twice removed from the undefinable sins Kristol finds most unforgiveable. Nevertheless, because Kristol still can’t abide Rand Paul, he gives us permission to parse the man as one of “them” who bear watching.
Please tell us Bill how much distance is “a lot” so that we can sleep at night.

I, too, would like for Bill to clarify which parts of Rand’s agenda aren’t his? I figure there is converse relationship: the less Rand is supported by The Weakly Standard, the more I can donate to Rand’s campaign.

Actually, we may be witnessing the next stage in neoclown evolution. While Frum is apoplectic about Rand’s success, Billy Red Shoes may be more tactful. He might be thinking, “Crap…maybe this liberty/limited government nonsense is for real. We need to keep our options open. If Rand gets elected, we need to be on decent terms with him (and his bourgeois following) so that we can get one of our guys ‘in the fold’ to counter those Campaign for Liberty yahoo’s. I mean we can still be friends and have limited government here, and still make the world safe for democracy…umm, can’t we?”

It seems to me that any authentic conservative is going to be a nativist to some degree. Conservatives conserve things. Immigration restriction is an inherently conservative measure. Immigration, particularly of people who are very different from the founding core ethnically, culturally and religiously, is inherently transformative. And mass immigration is radically transformative.

Nativism seems to carry a connotation of mean-spiritedness, but this is because we have allowed the Cultural Marxist to define it.